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Marriage, the Media and Miracles

Aug 18, 2015

The marriage wars in Australia continue unabated, with a fully compliant mainstream media doing much of the work for the homosexual activists who are bent on destroying marriage. When the various secular left minority groups have such a stranglehold on the MSM, then trying to get truth out into the public arena becomes a difficult task indeed.

But we must seek to do so. We must do all we can to fully engage in these battles, on every level. That means getting informed, lobbying, speaking out, contacting politicians, attending rallies, holding meetings, etc. But at the end of the day it will be through hard-core prayer and intercession that these battles are ultimately won.

I mentioned in that piece that we must pray as a champion for marriage and children appears on a hostile ABC show, Q&A. Katy Faust, along with atheist Brendan O’Neil were the only voices of sanity on a typically stacked panel – and audience. They did a superlative job, and prayers were clearly offered – and answered.

But there was even more good news and obvious answers to prayer going on last night. Before Q&A even appeared, perhaps the biggest miracle of the night was what occurred on Media Watch which appeared just before Q&A last night.

This is a leftist witch-hunt show, which regularly bashes Christians and conservatives. The various hosts over the years have all been lefties who push the secular left ethos of the ABC. So what took place last night was as surprising as it was unique. The show actually got it right for a change.

It was about how the pro-marriage side is being censored in the MSM. It actually made our case on this! Incredible. Between all the heat the ABC has been getting lately for its rampant bias, and all the prayers going up, things have actually changed just a bit. Amazing! The program began this way:

Media equality on marriage equality? Do both sides of the marriage equality debate get equal billing in the media? And now to something else that was big last week … and that’s the debate over same-sex marriage … where opponents of marriage equality are having difficulty getting their message out to the media.

Paul Barry mentioned how the few media outlets that did run pro-marriage ads were roundly attacked for doing so:

Whatever happened to freedom of speech? And was the ad really so offensive? Take a look at the TV commercial it ran from Marriage Alliance and judge for yourself.
“VOICE OVER: So it’s time to step back and consider all the issues around same-sex marriage, like how it will affect sex education in schools or how it will affect children. We could even lose certain rights, since changing the meaning of marriage has unintended consequences. — Marriage Alliance Ad, 9th August, 2015”
All pretty mild, surely? But Fairfax and Channel Nine, who also published the ad, ran into similar flak, including this broadside from Mamamia.
“The ad’s inaccurate claims are offensive. They are untrue. They are inviting hate. And they are being aired to hundreds of thousands of Australians on free-to-air television. That’s why today, we’re asking: Why on earth did the Nine Network agree to air these ads? — Mamamia, 11th August, 2015”
The ad in fact makes hardly any claims at all and in my opinion to say it’s inviting hate is ridiculous. But by then, other media had already decided to ban it, with Channel Seven, Channel Ten, 2DayFM, The Australian Radio Network and Nova all refusing to give the ad an airing. So how did they justify this? Well, Ten refused to comment … While Seven told Media Watch unconvincingly:
“We could not accommodate the booking and scheduling request. — Simon Francis, Director Corporate Affairs, Seven West Media, 13th August, 2015”

He asked if the pro-marriage side is getting a fair hearing:

We don’t think they are. When Canberra Airport lit up in rainbow lights last Sunday to support same sex marriage, it was front page in The Age and The Canberra Times next morning and also big news in the Sydney Morning Herald. And it scored almost fifty mentions on radio and TV.
But on Monday, when opponents of gay marriage piled flowers on the lawn at Parliament House it got just 14 mentions on radio and TV, one story on News.com.au, and this brief report on page 6 of the Adelaide Advertiser.
Sure, the airport was a better story. But the overall media coverage of the debate has also been skewed. For example, none of the commercial TV stations covered the launch of the Marriage Alliance campaign.
And major one-on-one interviews on radio and TV have also been out of kilter. With two key spokespeople for marriage equality, Rodney Croome and Christine Forster, scoring 32 interviews between them in the first 12 days of August. And by our count, two key speakers against – Sophie York and David van Gend – scoring a grand total of only 12. Amazingly, the ABC has not interviewed Sophie York from the Marriage Alliance even once – despite 16 interviews with Forster and Croome.

He even quoted David van Gend of the Australian Marriage Forum: “No-one ever rings us. We send endless media releases … I don’t want to pester anyone, but we’re here.” He then concluded with these words:

And just before you pile into me on Twitter if you’re not already doing so. I am a supporter of Marriage Equality. But, as we’re constantly being reminded, this is a conscience issue and an important change that’s being proposed, and surely both sides of the debate have an equal right to be heard.

Wow. Mind-boggling. The ABC for perhaps the first time in decades actually giving our side a fair run. I am flabbergasted. As I say, they must be feeling the heat, and, more importantly, there must be some heavy-duty prayer and intercession going on here.

As to the Q&A show, it was the usual stacked deck, but as I say, Katy and Brendan did a superb job, outnumbered as they were. In typical ABC fashion, they had various pre-arranged folks in the audience with their emotional personal stories and gotcha questions for the two conservative voices.

Katy was not even allowed to give her personal story about how she fared raised by lesbians, while other pro-homosexuals were giving lengthy runs to push their side with emotive stories. One guy spoke of his abusive dysfunctional heterosexual family, and how it became all sweetness and light when he moved into a homosexual household.

This of course is called mixing apples and oranges. Either compare a messed-up dysfunctional heterosexual family with a messed-up dysfunctional homosexual family, or compare two healthy versions of each. But this is how the other side always cheats its way through these debates. Katy however did a fine job of answering this person:

Good, thank you Craig. So, yeah. So, about 10 years ago, I was in – maybe more. I was invited by two women to travel with them to adopt a child that had special needs in an overseas institution and I said “Heck, yes. I’m going with you” and, I know, so hateful huh? But I said, “Absolutely,” right. That you are going to try and repair a damaged situation for a child. You are not inflicting motherlessness or fatherlessness on this child. Really, you are trying to repair something that has been lost, just like so many grandparents do and so many aunts and uncles do when the relationship between mother and father break down and that child is in need of some kind of rescue. And in that situation I would say that adoption agencies need to have all options on the table because you are trying to repair a broken situation. But what we don’t want is a system or a family structure that permits intentional fatherless and motherlessness and, because government’s interest in marriage is children, it is not how you feel about somebody, Government’s interest in marriage is children and so redefining marriage redefines parenthood into an institution where mothers and fathers are not necessary and they’re optional and that’s really not the case in the life of a child. When a child loses a parent, the ones I’ve talked to, they tend to mourn the loss of that parent. So while I absolutely would say we have got to get in and do life with couples that are doing their best to help a child in a broken situation. That’s very different than institutionalising a family structure where children will always lose one or the other.

The Labor guy did a great job of not dealing with the evidence and just attacking Katy, saying she was a hater and so on. Name calling always beats having to deal with the evidence. Brendan rightly pointed this out:

Here is what freaks me out about gay marriage. It presents itself as this kind of liberal civil rightsy issue but it has this really ugly intolerant streak to it. Anyone who opposes gay marriage is demonised, harassed, we have seen people thrown out of their jobs because they criticised gay marriage. We have seen people ejected from polite society. You know, 200 years ago, if you didn’t believe in God, you wouldn’t have a hope in hell of getting ahead in public life. Today, if you don’t believe in gay marriage, you don’t have a hope in hell of getting ahead in public life. There’s a real, ugly element to this and I think, you know, you really see it with the whole cake shop phenomenon. This whole thing around the western world where people are going to Christian traditional cake shops and saying to them, “Hey, you stupid Christians, make this cake for me”, and if they don’t they call the police. There are equality cases. Shops have closed down. It’s like a 21st century form of religious persecution. It’s horrendous and I think, you know, of course some people support gay marriage, as we’ve heard. That’s absolutely fine. But what’s extraordinary and unacceptable is that they cannot tolerate the existence of people who do not support gay marriage and I think we sometimes fail to understand how extraordinary that is and I think the reason Tony Abbott is very defensive on this issue and is erming and ahing and shifting from the free vote to the not free vote and all this stuff, he clearly has a problem with gay marriage but he can’t articulate it because we live in a climate in which it’s not acceptable, as we have just seen in Sam’s attack on Katy, calling her hateful and saying she’s talking claptrap, it’s not acceptable to express this sentiment in public life.

And Brendan kept on scoring goals, as in this exchange with the Labor guy:

SAM DASTYARI: Brendan, where I was born – where I was born in Iraq, you know, marriage is a contract or agreement between one – exclusively between one man and up to four women. I mean there are different standards, there are different rules and frankly…
BRENDAN O’NEILL: But opposite sexes.
SAM DASTYARI: Yes, opposite sexes.
BRENDAN O’NEILL: This is what’s new. So why will you not admit the newness of the institution? Why do you pretend that it’s the same as the other institution that has existed for thousands of years?

As usual, Jones continuously cut off the conservatives, while allowing the other side a free ride. The lefties had no answers at all to the courageous pair who stood their ground. The Greens’ guy simply repeated lies about how the research shows that ‘love is all that matters’. Baloney, the thousands of studies on this show that children do best, all things considered, when raised in a married heterosexual household.

Family structure does indeed matter. As Katy replied to the charge of hatred and bigotry:

Well, you know, some of you have said there is no good reason, right. There is no good reason except hatred and I guess I would ask you to consider this from a child’s point of view, that not every couple has children. Every child has a mother and father and every child has a right to that mother and father, a natural right and despite what you may say, social science doesn’t just say nice people determine best outcome for kids. The reality is that the married mother/father household determines the best outcome.

And to another questioner claiming the studies show homosexual parenting is just peachy she replied:

Thank you so much for the question. I think this is really important. First of all, I make the basis of the claim that they have a right to the mother and father because it’s one of the most self evident rights out there, probably only trumped by a parent’s right to the child that they bear so and that’s something that’s recognised in the UN convention on the rights of the child that your country ratified in 1990. So it’s widely accepted. Next, let’s talk about the studies because this is critical. Interestingly, whenever you are studying family structure, when you are not talking about same sex parenting, social scientists tend to agree on three things. Number one, that non biological parents tend to be more transitory, invest less time and energy and resources into kids and be more dangerous to kids. Number two, they find that any time trauma – a child loses a parent, that trauma is involved and that that can affect a child in a long term and then they also agree that men and women parent differently and they offer distinct and complementary gifts to their kids. So whenever you’re not talking about same-sex parenting, you’re not studying same sex households, social scientists agree on all of those three things. But suddenly when you study same sex households, even though all three of those are going to be a factor every single time, suddenly children fair just as well. Now, my question is: do you think that that could possibly be because those studies that show that there is no difference do not use random samples and that most of them derive their participants through recruited and volunteer studies?

The highlight of the evening came towards the end of the show when the homosexual marriage and parenting discussion concluded, and debate about quota systems for women in politics was entered into. Of course all the lefties went on about how we must have such affirmative action programs for women to balance things out.

Brendan rightly pointed out the folly of all this, with women never knowing if they were chosen on merit or simply to meet some quota. Host Tony Jones made a major mistake by giving Katy a quick chance to speak here. What she said was a ripper:

I just think it’s fascinating that you guys feel that women make a difference and that it is helpful to have both perspectives and that certainly that can bring about a more balanced party and certainly it does represent, you know, half of the population and I guess that you might agree that the gender balance matters in the life of a child too. Right? No, really. And I think that it was your Senator Eric Abetz, he said marriage is the only institution that’s gotten the gender balance right and he’s right.

All in all this was an incredible show. Two – not one – voices were allowed to be heard from the conservative side on the homosexuality debate, and the two were both fully up to the task. Despite all the usual bias and one-sidedness, the two did an admirable job. Please have a look at the whole video (see link below).

Prayer was obviously a big part of all this. That and a steady stream of complaints to the ABC about all their wretched bias. This tells us something important: when we speak out and take a stance, and when we pray like mad, things can happen. We can see real results.

So well done to all of you who have been taking a stand. Well done to all of you who have been praying and fasting. Well done to Katy Faust and Brendan O’Neil. These small wins last night, along with the other victories we have seen over the past few weeks demonstrate loud and clear that prayer and action work.

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23 Responses to Marriage, the Media and Miracles

The best Q and A I’ve seen apart from the Peter Hitchens one – davidvangend.com/?p=1984
Love the quotes from Katy and Brendan.
Some live feed tweets were pro traditional marriage which was great to see.

You could have knocked me down with a feather to see Media Watch doing a story on blatantly biased media coverage of SSM.

I was also very impressed by how Katy Faust and Brendan O’Neil handled themselves on Q&A. At least we didn’t have to sit through a whole hour of discussion of that one issue. It already has saturation coverage as it is.

Full marks to Katy Faust for trying to base her position on scientific research. No marks to the pro-gay audience for failing to question that unverifiable anecdote by a stranger who told how he suffered in a dysfunctional family but was saved by two homosexual men who gave him “happiness”. Why would anyone give weight to the story?

Nice to see Brendan O’Neil reproach the gay side for their ugly manner. Years ago I saw a New Zealand Humanist rebuke a gay activist for his manner. If insolent gays can get up the noses of hard boiled atheists then there’s hope for the human race yet.

Thanks so much for this article. I was relieved to hear Katy defend so meaningfully despite some atrocious comments by the men either side. Brendan O’Neil blew me away! So well spoken and so succinct in his appraisals of how things are. Great follow up article Bill. I’ve had to really search for pro marriage intelligent comment. This country is drowning in bias and ignorance jumping on board the same-sex train, blindly following each other to the edge of the precipice, only to fall over the side eventually, unfortunately (God have mercy on them). May so many more Believers rise up in prayer and help Australia really make a statement to the rest of the world – we want God’s way and rule. Lord, help us to see this battle through with strength, dignity and courage, in Jesus Name.

I believe we are going to see more and more victories. Prayers are going up as never before. God said that if we humble ourselves and pray, seek His face and turn from our wicked ways, He will hear from heaven, forgive our sin and heal our land. That’s the power behind everything we do. Look what’s happening to Planned Parenthood in USA. We can be sure that the hidden power behind that is unified prayer. It’s also Christians being bold enough to stand and speak out. I remember when Matt Prater spoke out boldly to Kevin Rudd about his election promises. And look at the many times Fred Nile and Bill have spoken out. That’s the powerful witness not just to the world but to the Principalities and Powers that inhabit the airspace around us. There comes a time where enough is enough and the prayer has been ascending into heaven. I believe we’re beginning to see breakthrough.

I have yet to see the Q&A broadcast in its entirety, (If anyone has a link, I would appreciate it) but am equally delighted with the aftermath reporting of the quotes that stumped the liberal panel! I don’t recall hearing such debates in the States when our Supreme Court was making its decision on SSM. All Glory to God!!!

I never ever would have thought to have seen the day where a Christian and an Atheist would stand shoulder to shoulder and fight against a common foe, bravo to Katy and Brendan! (Did you hear the one about the Christian and the Atheist…….. 🙂 ) God’s mysteries are endless!

I watched Katy on Lateline last week and there too she slam dunked Tony Jones.

Although, this merely only highlights the huge mountain of work ahead to defeat this scourge down here. Whilst we can savour these monumental victories, we cannot afford to become complacent.

I have watched this slick ssm marketing machine for years wondering when someone smarter than me would stand up and say something. It’s now been said and needs to be continually be said by other intelligent people to remain on song. If God is indeed moving on this we need to be prepared and as a potential movement, we all need to be on song.

Ultimately, the aim must be to save Australia from following in the tragic footsteps of other Western nations on ssm and then to use Australia to hopefully assist in reversing the stupidity of these nations.

Good work Bill on dissecting the show!

I’m new to your blog and I’m looking forward to reading your articles, I see you have a strong following of enemies, clearly a testimony that you’re on the right track!

I watched that episode of Q & A, and like others have commented here, the two arguing against SSM, simply did so with great intellectualism, professionalism and clarity. We indeed need to step-up our prayers even more, praying for rain in the days of the latter rain. I also pray for confusion in the camps of our enemies as we pray for unity in our camps. Lord, we look to you and pray for mercy as we stand in the gap for our nation.

Prayer support must definitely have worked Bill. I get the sense that Katy’s attitude of calm courage and grace under fire are an example to us all for the days ahead. Paraphrasing scripture; while being reviled, she reviled not….or return insult for insult.

Yes Bill, it was an astonishing week. But I did have an uncomfortable moment seeing Media Watch select me and Sophie York as “two key speakers against” – when we all know that men like you and Lyle Shelton have been in the field much longer and kicked many more goals than any of us. I wanted to mention this misgiving to you as I did to Lyle. He, as you would expect from a humble man, said “No: the cause is the cause, and we need as many voices out there as possible”.

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